1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a health care instrument used to measure internal oxidation-reduction potential of animated things such as a human being, an animal, fish and shellfish or plants and thereby to determine a condition of internal active oxygen.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the case of a human being, if an abnormal physical condition is suspected on the basis of a change in physical condition, the condition of health is often experientially determined by measuring his or her bodily temperature and comparing the measured temperature with his or her normal bodily temperature. The person then may seek medical advice from a doctor. However, this is a countermeasure taken after particular symptoms have appeared and such countermeasure is often too late to achieve health recovery.
Recently, the active oxygen has been reported as one of the important factors inducing diseases, for example, by Tokyo National Preventology Institute.
Oxygen is essential to animals including human beings and it is this oxygen that causes combustion in the body for generation of heat and energy. However, the oxygen is liable to be bonded to the surrounding substances in the form of hydrogen bond, covalent bond, ionic bond etc. The oxygen atom is bonded to the surrounding other atoms to form a molecule which is stable so long as this molecule has eight outer electrons. If the number of these outer electrons is insufficient, the oxygen atom tends to be bonded to the neighboring substances. The oxygen in such condition has an oxidizing ability higher than the oxygen in normal condition. Such oxygen is referred to as active oxygen and it has already been found that the active oxygen often threatens a person's health when it is bonded to an unsaturated fatty acid in the body to produce lipid peroxide.
The cells in a person's body are protected by the cell walls. These cell walls function to receive the nutrients and produce the biological active substances essential to the human body. However, the active oxygen readily destroys these cell walls and consequently the cell walls not only lose their proper function but also these destroyed cell walls produce the substances injuring the rest of the healthy cells, inducing various diseases.
On the other hand, various external factors such as air pollution due to destroyed natural environment, vegetables having residual pesticide, and chemically processed products have recently caused the environment polluting substances to enter the human body. In addition, the psychogenic factors cause the internal stresses. These factors have seriously injured our health. While the active oxygen is produced in the body to remove such environment pulluting substances and thereby to maintain the health, excessively produced active oxygen (excessive active oxygen) destroys even the healthy cells, as has previously described, and causes various diseases.
If generation of the active oxygen functioning to destroy even the healthy cells can be quickly detected, such detection will effectively contribute to maintain the health. The inventor has noticed that the active oxygen (excessive active oxygen) readily induces various diseases; and he aims to provide an instrument allowing oxidation-reduction potential in the body to be measured by an individual him- or herself in order to determine his or her physical condition, based on which said active oxygen (excessive active oxygen) is reduced to achieve the desired health care.
Introduction of a platinum electrode and hydrogen electrode into solution containing an oxidation-reduction couple generates a potential between these electrodes. Such potential is referred to as Oxidation Reduction Potential, (abbreviated as ORP). ORP is defined as follows: ##EQU1##
where
E: oxidation-reduction potential (V) PA1 E.sub.0 : reference oxidation-reduction potential (V) PA1 R: gas constant PA1 T: absolute temperature PA1 n: ionic charge number PA1 F: Faraday constant PA1 [Ox]: oxidizer concentration (mol/l) PA1 [Red]: reducer concentration (mol/l) PA1 E.sub.0 corresponds to E when [Ox]=[Red] and a constant for the relevant system.
According to the definition, two substances should be limited to those having electrons reversibly increasing and decreasing as the electrons transfer. The potential to be measured must be that in equilibrium under a certain environment. Since the potential is measured as that between two substances, the substance having larger number of electrons lies on minus side and the substance having smaller number of electrons lies on plus side. The invention is based on the fact that the ORP value corresponds to a mixed potential represented by a weighted average obtained from reaction energies of all ions and molecules even in body fluids of animals as well as plants containing biologically active substances such as enzymes: and such mixed potential can be used for measuring oxidation-reduction potential not only in a human body but also in animals and plants.
Condition of the active oxygen in the body can be determined by measuring the oxidation-reduction potential in the body. The interior of the healthy human body is maintained in an alkaline condition and thereby the health is maintained by the natural curative processes. On the contrary, exterior of the human body is in an acid condition. The previously mentioned oxidation-reduction potential (mV) is an index of ability with which a compound oxidizes or reduces the other compound. The compound having a higher plus value of the oxidation-reduction potential exhibits a correspondingly higher oxidizing ability (i.e., highly corrosive), and the compound having a lower minus value of the oxidation-reduction potential exhibits a correspondingly higher reducing ability (i.e., beneficial for the health). Transfer of electrons and reaction of energy metabolism occurring in all living matters are oxidation-reduction reactions: and it is very important to measure the oxidation-reduction potential value in the body to maintain the living matters in healthy condition.
It is important to ingest the foods having high minus values of oxidation-reduction potential and functioning as substance scavengers which add the active oxygen with additional electrons for reduction effect. It is also important to eliminate the stresses tending to induce such stresses. To establish the eating habits allowing the oxidation-reduction potential to be maintained at a minus value, various foods including water, fruits, fishes and shellfishes may be taken on the basis of the oxidation-reduction potential values previously measured on these foods. In this manner, an effective counterplan against diseases can be considered in advance and the health can be consciously maintained.
The measured value of oxidation-reduction potential significantly lying on the plus side suggests that the physical condition is in an undesirable condition in a human body as well as in the other living matters such as animals, fishes, shellfishes and plants.